Martha Paulson Irwin

Martha Paulson Irwin, a longtime resident of New Orleans, devoted wife, and mother of three, died of Alzheimer's on February 4, 2026, a few weeks shy of her 88th birthday.

Martha was born on February 22, 1938, in Elyria, Ohio. She grew up in Vermilion, a small town on Lake Erie, and was an avid sailor and swimmer. If you're wondering how tough she was, rest assured that water is very cold.

She graduated from the Academy of the Sacred Heart in Cincinnati in 1956, and during high school she enjoyed a period studying abroad at Sacred Heart Academy in Paris. She earned a BA in Liberal Arts from Marymount College in 1960 and a Master's from Kent State University sometime in the 60's, but the registrar won't tell me when or in what until I prove to their satisfaction that she is deceased, so the specifics will remain a mystery. She received her MS in Audiology and Speech Pathology from Washington University in St. Louis in 1969, after which she accepted a job in Anchorage, Alaska. It was in Anchorage, and not in her 50+ years in New Orleans, that she had the best fish of her life when her hosts went out back with an ice axe and caught trout from the stream below for dinner.

She relocated to Madison, Wisconsin to perform audiology research at the University of Wisconsin with Dr. Robert Goldstein. From there, she moved to New Orleans, continuing her audiology research with Dr. Charles Berlin at Louisiana State University.

She married Thomas M. Irwin, Jr. in 1973, and together they had three children. After raising them and surviving cancer, Martha returned to academia, earning an MS in Urban Studies from the University of New Orleans. She completed but never defended a doctoral thesis in Urban Studies, also at UNO, but she was more interested in archeological digs and doing archival research in three languages than the PhD itself, and in those pursuits, she certainly succeeded. She served as a docent at the Hermann-Grima House, where she performed cooking demonstrations in the 1830's open-hearth kitchen, and at Ursulines Convent. She enjoyed regular lectures at the Petit Salon, and volunteered for various charitable organizations, including the Boys and Girls Club of New Orleans, Aesculapians, and Freedoms Foundation. She also attended Mass daily and was fortunate to belong to a tight-knit prayer group of fellow Catholics who supported each other in friendship and faith.

Martha was relentlessly curious, academically brilliant, and gobsmackingly disorganized. She never put anything in the same place twice and rarely made it to her scheduled appointments on the first try. But she made it extremely difficult for anyone to get angry at her for it because she was so kind, warm, welcoming, and loving. She treated every person she came into contact with as though they deserved care and compassion because she genuinely believed it to be true. Her friendship was a gift to all who received it, and she was grateful in turn for the opportunity to bestow it. The messages of support her family has received from a wide circle of phenomenal people are a testament to what an extraordinary woman she was and just how many lives she touched. Hers was a life very well-lived.

She is preceded in death by her sister, Judith Trout Paulson, and her parents, Warren Beach Paulson and Dorothy Conway Paulson. She is survived by her husband, Thomas Melbourne, Jr., three children Thomas Melbourne III (Chelsea), Warren Beach (Jenny), and Conway Stewart (Michael Hirson) and six grandchildren Cameron Bay Singer (Lev), Alexander John Lowry, Palmer Beach Irwin, Thomas Melbourne Irwin IV, Elizabeth Anne Irwin, and Nina Elder Hirson.

Funeral services will be held at 10:00AM on February 20, 2026, at Jacob Schoen & Son.

In lieu of flowers, please donate to Hermann-Grima-Gallier Historic Houses.